Wagner James Au reports on virtual worlds, VR & Internet culture

Tuesday, April 02, 2019

Watch: Why Dual Universe's Version of the Metaverse is an MMO Kept Separate from the Real World

Put on some headphones and watch my GDC week conversation with JC Baillie, founder and lead developer of Dual Universe, the upcoming, crowd-funded, single shard MMO, which some argue is the closest thing we have to a metaverse, As we discuss over drinks, JC's vision of "the Metaverse" is markedly different from that of, say, VRChat, High Fidelity, or Second Life, where the real world and the virtual world freely intermingle -- and the virtual experience is basically a network of 3D chat rooms.

Originally a scientist specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence, JC's vision is decidedly larger -- in essence, he and his team are attempting to build a completely separate existence that's both scientifically and narratively self-consistent. (It's his science background, by the way, that he credits the ability to create Dual Universe's massive user concurrency in a single shard MMO.)

Here's what we discussed in our twenty minute chat:

Why Dual Universe’s version of“the Metaverse” is a persistent alternate reality separate from the real world ‘something more like ‘The Matrix’”— including no direct connection between the game’s virtual currency and real money. Money, JC says, “Will [negatively] impact the experience.” (Starting around :20)

How open is Dual Universe’s gameplay theme? For instance, can people play Dual Universe as a fantasy MMO? I.E., Convert a single planet into a medieval era setting? Answer: Potentially yes, but then medieval planets would be vulnerable to interstellar invasion. (Starting around 3:40)

How Dual Universe can make creative and artistic non-combat communities possible — through safe zones and no-PVP “sanctuary moons”. (Starting around 5:25)

Much more below:

When will we see anything other than spacesuit-wearing avatars we see in trailers now? Answer: Coming soon-ish.(Starting around 6:45)

Since you can connect Dual Universe objects to HTML code and deploy Lua scripting, do you see people connecting to the real world from Dual Universe and bringing up real pages in the game world? Answer: Potentially, but some web functionality have been disabled for now for security reasons. (Starting around 7:20)

How many users can Dual Universe attract? Because the game enables more creativity, JC reasons, it might attract much of the user base who enjoyed playing Minecraft, i.e. “millions of players” — with “billions” possible in 5-10 years. “In principle, the game is designed to do that… we can hope for that one day.” (Starting around 9:22)

How does he hope Dual Universe changes the real world? JC sees Dual Universe evolving with other technological advances (AI, automation, etc.) which give people more and more free time to explore and play in a virtual world like DU. In other words, he believes they'll spend more time in Dual Universe rather than passively watching TV, movies, etc. He also sees the potential for people to learn real skills in Dual Universe (management, coding, etc) they can apply in their real lives. More than that, if Dual Universe becomes large, players can shape the lives of thousands of fellow players through virtual commerce, conquering, community leadership, and so on. (Starting around 12:00)

Can he see real world conflicts showing up in Dual Universe? For instance, angry Russian players who take out their in-game grudges on players from other countries? JC is skeptical, but also mentions there will be in-game regulations that forbid real world politics in Dual Universe. He suggests the game’s fictional setting (humans colonizing the galaxy ten thousand years after Earth is gone) means that earth politics and history will be wiped out and forgotten. (I.E., as I interject, “Donald Trump is no longer remembered in Dual Universe!”)

Personally I'm excited by the possibilities and the vision JC has. At the same time, I think it will be a huge challenge to find an audience beyond the niche of hardcore sci-fi MMOers who play games like Eve Online and the upcoming Star Citizen. While it's possible (as he suggests) that gamers raised on Minecraft and Roblox may be attracted by the world's creativity features, that would almost require creating an entirely different product and user experience to match these consumer expectations. But I hope I'm wrong, because imagine all the emergent possibilities to come from a vision so grand.

Comments

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If it doesn't have some really good PvE by release, I don't see how exploration or other frontier work will be anything but a drudgerous grind. I'm still hoping they'll be able to implement procedurally evolving creatures, once the Beta testing goals are met.

Well exploration is mailny about discovering new planets and resources. As far as I know there won´t be evolving animals and such. Animals will probably be mainly a source of food. There will be new stuff you will discover on the planets but what it is is not certain now.